You and your students are cordially invited to attend the Dowling Catholic Paradigm. We provide a unique and diverse competitive experience. 

We will hold a virtual tournament this year. Our video platform has not been determined. We will be holding ALL EVENTS (except Duo) synchronously.

We are holding DUO ASYNCHRONOUSLY - please see rules posted on the right hand bar...for competitive equity...the students may not be together in the same space EVEN if your school/area of the country does not restrict students from being together.

We anticipate a larger field in all events. However, we are committed to remaining true to the historical character of the tournament. Therefore, we will implement the following measures:
A. All NEW entries are waitlisted. Due to an error on my part some have registered before I had intended it be possible, THEY SHALL NOT BE PENALIZED FOR MY MISTAKE.  We will move entries off the waitlist and into the tournament based on the following factors: 1. Has your school attended the Paradigm in the last few years? 2. Is your school in our geographic region that has been traditionally represented at the tournament (Midwest). Schools that do not meet either of those characteristics may still be admitted, but priority will be given to those who meet at least one of the two listed factors.

B. We may coordinate with our DEAR friends at the Newman Invitational, which is held on the same weekend, by (1) merging the debate judge pools to create more diversity (but not combining the fields into a single event) and (2) combining speech events that are TOC qualifiers in order to increase the number of bids to the TOC in those events.

We are pleased to announce that we are a qualifying tournament for UK's TOC in all twelve events they host. Students advancing to the designated place will earn one bid to the 2021 National Tournament of Champions hosted by the University of Kentucky.

We plan to offer 6 preliminary rounds of debate in novice and varsity divisions of Policy, LD, and PF. We also offer 3 two-hour preliminary sessions in Congress. Additionally, we offer 4 preliminary rounds in all Speech events; however, students will not be able to cross-enter debate and speech events. Speech competitors can enter up to 3 events within the speech category, but no triple entry within a pattern.


We will tabulate all events on tabroom.com. All postings will be available online and emails/texts will be blasted. All contestants must have a linked tabroom account in order to access competition rooms. All judges must have a linked tabroom.com account in order to access competition rooms and electronic ballots. They must have devices to complete online ballots and watch/listen to rounds.